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B.C. cities have no way to enforce closure of licensed marijuana grow-ops

A medical marijuana user uses a vaporizer at their home. Health Canada is changing the regulations and forcing users to purchase their marijuana from commercial operations.

The federal government will ask roughly 13,000 licensed marijuana growers across the province to shut down their operations next year because of concerns the program is being abused.

But to the anger of Lower Mainland mayors, Health Canada appears to have no serious plan to enforce the closings — and won’t even tell municipalities where the operations are, citing a lack of authority and the growers’ rights to privacy.

The mayors are concerned there will be no way to ensure the sites where growing operations are currently located are safe for neighbours or future homebuyers. And they simply don’t believe any growers who were already flouting the federal rules will simply close up shop.

“Let’s say that a certain amount of marijuana is going into the black market,” Abbotsford Mayor Bruce Banman said after last week’s annual Union of B.C. Municipalities. “Do you think (those) people are going to comply with that (federal request)?”

Banman said the government’s assurance that licensed growers would be notified of the rule change is simply not enough.

“This is potentially an absolute nightmare,” said Banman. “They send them a letter to stop and desist. How do we know they’re complying?”

Health Canada only tells police whether a pot grower they are investigating has a licence once officers are about to execute a search warrant, according to Abbotsford police spokesman Const. Ian MacDonald.

Due to the ministry’s privacy concerns, about 70 per cent of all his department’s grow-op investigations are stopped at the “11th hour” after Health Canada informs investigators that the operators are licensed to grow, MacDonald said.

Abbotsford has 829 licensed growers, 720 of whom are only authorized to grow marijuana for themselves, according to the most up-to-date statistics provided by Health Canada.

Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts said the issue is not about privacy.

“At the end of the day, I don’t care who’s on medicinal marijuana or what prescription drugs or whatever people take. It’s a safety issue for neighbourhoods.”

Banman said homes used for legalized grows may have mould problems, poor venting, unsafe wiring, structural problems or unsafe modifications, which could cause problems for both unsuspecting neighbours and future homebuyers.

Sean Upton, a senior media relations officer at Health Canada, refused to be quoted on the story but following days of requests for more information, emailed an uncited response from the ministry.

“After March 31, 2014 Health Canada will not have the legislative authority to conduct inspections of homes used in the cultivation of marihuana for medical purposes,” read the email.

It continued to state that the department will “provide guidance to all current program participants so they are aware of their responsibilities with regards to disposing of their dried marihuana and plants.”

MacDonald said he expects the federal government to announce a transition, or grace period, for growers whose licences run out next spring to continue growing without penalty.

“It remains essentially a relationship between Health Canada and the end user,” MacDonald said of the current system. “And now the suggestion is ‘Of course, from an enforcement (perspective), you will be part of it’ — it just seems a bit odd.”

According to Banman, “Health Canada created this problem.”

“They thought what they were doing was in the best interest of those that require medical marijuana. Okay. But if you make a mistake, you have an obligation to put it right,” he added.

Under the current federal regulations, individuals needing medicinal marijuana can access Health Canada’s supply, grow it themselves at home with a licence, or purchase it from another person licensed to grow marijuana on their behalf. As of April 2014, anyone authorized to possess medicinal marijuana will have to get it from a licensed producer.

The federal health minister said in March the changes were needed “in order to protect public safety.” Stephane Shank, a spokesman for Health Canada, had told Postmedia in the lead-up to the policy change that “the government is concerned that the current medical marijuana access program is open to abuse.”

At the time, Shank was speaking about police allegations that an Ontario family and their associates made hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits from exploiting the program and distributing marijuana via a network that stretched all the way to Newfoundland.

Health Canada could not offer statistics on how many licensees had been caught defrauding the system, and it could not say how many investigators the department currently had in place in the province to ensure the program was not being abused.

Banman said that, to his knowledge, there were only three licensed grow inspectors for all of Western Canada. Health Canada did not respond to a followup request to confirm this figure.

Nearly 10,000 Personal-Use Production Licences and another 3,000 Designated-Person Production Licences have been handed out to B.C. residents alone, according to the department. Health Canada had figures for a few other municipalities prepared by print deadline, among them Chilliwack, whose 92,000 residents had 500 personal licences and 80 designated licenses, and Nanaimo, a city with a similar population, which had 340 and 70 licenses, respectively.

Mission has 917 licensed growers, and 883 now operate in Surrey, according to Health Canada.

Banman said Abbotsford had never been informed as to how many people have growing licenses in the city, but added that city police are now aware of at least 100 legal operations as a result of public tips to police.

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